Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga (31 page)

Kara didn’t stand a chance against an army. Not really, not even after all of her training. If the army found her—if Carden found her—she would have to take off the wrist guard that kept her power at bay to even stand a chance of survival. She didn’t want to do that, but she didn’t want Flick to be caught in the crossfire if it happened.

“If anyone but me comes in, teleport her somewhere else. I don’t care where. I’ll find you,” she said.

He whimpered and pushed his head into her hand. She swallowed hard and forced herself to her feet. In a few strides, she crossed the room and set her hand on the wall.

The hidden door slid open at her touch to reveal the empty spiral staircase. Stone stairs disappeared into the darkness on either side of her. Sconces still lit the stairwell, but the lights hung too far apart to provide steady relief from the shadows.

If Aurora’s hunch was right, Kara had to get to the throne room. What she would do when she got there, however, was another matter entirely.

She inched up the stairs, ears twitching at every half-imagined whisper. The explosions settled. No more booms rattled the sconces. No one screamed.

The stairs leveled off into a narrow hallway. Kara stopped, certain the door to the castle had to be in the wall. She pressed her ear to the stone, listening for a voice on the other side. For footsteps. Anything.

A distant scream shot through the rock. Kara shuddered. She took a deep breath to steady herself and listened once again. On occasion, a mumble drifted through the cracks. No loud voices passed by on the other side.

Now or never.

Kara ran her hands along the stones, pushing each of them in an effort to find the one that opened the hidden door. One after another, the solid rocks resisted her touch. She moved down the wall, pressing stone after stone after stone.

A minute passed. Two. Five. She cursed. Finally, one gave way under her touch. As it sank into the wall, Kara sighed with relief.

A gentle hiss escaped from the bricks to her right. The stones groaned. A section of the wall inched backward into the hidden stairwell.

Kara peeked out before it stopped moving. The empty hallway stretched off on either side of her. It took a moment to get her bearings. On her left, the hall split away into a labyrinth of rooms and corridors. On her right, the blue throne room doors stood ajar.

A scream broke the silence. Definitely a man. Someone spoke, the voice too fast and low to make out. The man screamed again, but it died off with a gurgle.

Kara took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway, her back sliding along the wall as she moved. The door creaked shut behind her until it once more looked like just a wall. She took a mental note of its location: between the ninth and tenth sconce. Hopefully she would be able to open it again.

A chorus of men’s laughter bubbled through the crack in the doors. A woman whimpered. More laughter.

Kara inched closer, her bare feet registering the cold stones beneath her with each step. Her dress swished along her legs, the slit revealing too much of her thigh. The frayed ends tickled her shins.

She peeked through the door and forced back the reflexive curse that shot into her mouth.

Stelians filled the throne room. Thousands of them. Many grinned. Others chuckled. But all of them watched the front of the room—the platform on which Ithone, Gurien, and Aurora had argued barely an hour earlier.

Kara shifted until she could see the platform through the crack in the main doors.

Carden stood in front of the center throne. He sneered at a Kirelm curled at his feet. Silver wings drooped to the floor, twitching. Off to the side of the platform, four Stelians held Gurien at bay: two held his arms, and two held his wings. He fought against them, but their grip dragged him backward with each attempt to escape.

“She’s only a girl! Let her go!” Gurien shouted.

Carden’s grin widened. Without looking down, he kicked the Kirelm at his feet. Something snapped. The Kirelm screamed, her voice breaking.

The Stelian Blood eyed his victim, a smile still on his face. “I can make the pain stop, Elana. Just tell me where Aurora is, and we’ll be done.”

Elana—that name struck a chord in the back of Kara’s mind. Why?

She scanned through her thoughts, palms sweating, until it clicked. Elana left a note in the Grimoire warning Kara of Ithone’s intention to kidnap her. Elana was Aurora’s lady in waiting and—more importantly—a vagabond.

Hatred burned through Kara’s gut. The skin on her neck prickled. No one touched her vagabonds.

Her hands tightened into fists. Her core tensed. Her elbows shook from the sudden strain. The hallway dissolved from her peripheral vision as Carden kicked Elana once more.

Kara’s eyes narrowed. The world around her faded until the Stelian Blood’s laughter shoved aside the last of her rational thought. Elana’s screams faded. Gurien’s shouts dissolved until it seemed as though he moved his lips without making a sound.

A green glow raced along her arm. It spiked and faded as quickly as it had come. Another trail of light pulsed beneath the skirt of her gown. It raced across the slit in her dress. Its brilliance left a white streak on her vision.

A dull ache throbbed in her wrist. She glanced at the band Stone forced her to wear for her own good. It gave her the modicum of control she had over her power. It limited the flow of magic through her body, even though that was exactly what she had been designed for: power.

If she walked into that room with the wrist guard on, she didn’t stand a chance. If she took it off, she could kill them all; just like her grandfather, she would leave nothing but corpses. Hopefully her allies would simply get out of the way.

Time slowed. She tugged at the leather strap. It unwound itself. Tension in her arm eased as the restraints fell away. Her pulse raced. She sucked in breath after breath as her stomach churned with excitement. She slipped her fingertips between her skin and the leather, prying the band away from her body.

Small spikes in the band lifted away from her body. Shivers of delight raced through her. The air settled against the sweat-soaked arms.

A spark slithered through her veins. It traveled from her wrist clear down to her heels. Another appeared within her, and another, until electricity coursed through her core.

Her fear became glee.

The glow returned, brighter now. It flickered and raced over her skin, reflecting off the door like the northern lights. Something clicked in the back of her mind—this same green glow preceded a murder in each of her grandfather’s memories.

Good.

A smile spread across Kara’s lips. She could take on the whole room. She would kill them all.

She clutched the wrist guard in one hand and walked through the doors. The room hushed. Everyone turned and stared. Gurien stopped fighting his captors. His lips parted in shock—horror, maybe—but he must have been terrified Kara left Aurora alone. That didn’t matter.

Carden frowned. “Kill her.”

Kara’s grin widened. Power burned within her, igniting the last traces of her self control. This would be
fun
.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

DESTRUCTION

Kara never took her eyes off of Carden. He stood on the platform beside the Kirelm thrones, one of her vagabonds curled at his feet. Elana whimpered from what had to be lingering pain after Carden’s abuse.

Green light pulsed over Kara’s skin, casting a glow across the ash-gray faces surrounding her. Thousands of Stelians shifted in the audience around her, most likely wondering what made her glow and whether or not they should run.

Carden glared at his army. “What are you waiting for? Kill her!”

The wrist guard hung limp in Kara’s hand. Carden could probably smell her, so he probably knew she was an isen, but he couldn’t know of her ties to Agneon. He didn’t know that taking off her cuff meant sacrificing her self-control. He didn’t know she was about to kill everything that came between her and ripping off his head.

And nothing could stop her.

Ten of the nearest Stelians inched closer. They drew swords, but it didn’t matter what they held. They would die.

Her eyes shifted to them. The one in front froze. His hands tightened around the padded hilt of a sword. Kara’s ear twitched at the creak of skin on leather. He licked his lips, eyes darting to his neighbors as if uncertain what to make of this girl he was supposed to kill.

Kara smiled.

Sparks danced along her arms. The glow raced again across her body, stronger now. A string of light broke away like a lasso aimed for the Stelian’s head. He screamed. The light thickened, casting its aim at more of the soldiers. When the light touched them, they dissolved into ash that fell to the floor. Steam radiated from their remains.

Kara hadn’t even moved.

Voices boiled over the crowd. Panic. Fear. Kara’s grin widened. Joy and madness ripped through her like the light had ripped through her attackers. It ignited something within her—something dark. Beautiful. Terrifying. A voice echoed through her head—it sounded like her but came unbidden.

Fear me.

Carden’s smirk faded. He hesitated on the platform, apparently surprised. Without another thought, Kara sprinted toward him.

Her dress pulled on her legs, the slit widening with each step as the fabric ripped from the strain. Her bare feet slapped along the floor—
pit pat, pit pat.
Loose strands of her hair floated about her as she ran. Air soared through her lungs when she should have been breathless from the exertion. Too much power tore through her. Too much adrenaline. She couldn’t stop.

Any Stelians between her and the invading Blood gasped and shifted out of her way. The smile never left her face.

Carden frowned and stepped over Elana’s now-still body. He walked toward Kara, his body growing with every step. His shoulders stretched. His arms thickened. His eyes burned red. His charcoal-gray skin darkened until he became like a shadow.

All Stelians within a hundred feet buckled and fell to their knees as Carden sucked the energy out of them to dawn his daru—the most powerful form a royal yakona could assume. And according to Braeden, the Stelian daru could even feed off of fear. Kara had never fought a royal’s daru before, though she had seen one—Braeden lost control of himself when she refused to make him a vagabond all those months ago. Back then, she was terrified of his sudden surge of power and hatred. But not now.

With the power-limiting bracelet gone, Kara didn’t fear anything.

Her mind buzzed. She disconnected from the world, from everything. She saw only the evil man walking toward her. Lights faded. Time slowed. Only the patter of her feet on the floor reached her ears, marred of course by the occasional rip in her dress as she pushed the boundaries of what it could endure. Sweat trickled down her neck.

Nearly to Carden, Kara dropped her wrist guard.

“You’re mine,” she said to the king.

“We’ll see,” Carden answered. His voice came out as a growl.

A black mist shot from Carden’s fingers. It sailed toward Kara. She didn’t think. She didn’t slow. She didn’t even react. Instead, a flare of green light hurled away from her on its own, tearing into the smoke. The fog burned away in a green blaze. Dust hung in the air.

Carden ambled toward her, apparently in no rush. Another bolt of smoke shot from his hands. And another. And another. Each met the same fate as the first.

In seconds, she reached him. Her hands moved on their own. Red sparks burst to life in her palms. The flickers hummed, jumping back and forth in arcs that formed bridges between her fingers.

Carden lunged for her neck, his red eyes blazing. He didn’t make it.

She grabbed his wrists. The red sparks burned through him, racing along his arms. He yelled. With an alien strength she didn’t understand, Kara twisted her body and flung him toward the front doors at the far end of the throne room. He sailed through the air like a disc and crashed into the kneeling throng of his people.

The Stelians came to watch their king torture Kirelms. They would get a different show.

Carden pushed himself to his feet, but Kara reached him before he stood. She moved like fire across paper, or water through a brook. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t really care, either.

His eyes widened in surprise a split second before Kara kicked him in the gut. He sailed backward once more, victim to a strength Kara didn’t know she possessed.

Again and again, she knocked him backward. More and more Stelians bent over as he passed, but it didn’t matter how much energy he stole from them. It wouldn’t be enough.

Kara paused. He had to be drawing every last drop of energy from his subjects. Idiot. Sending them after her in one mob would have been smarter. She would have still killed them, sure, but it would have been a more effective means for him to escape. He probably still didn’t realize retreat was the only way he would make it out of this alive.

Arrogant bastard.

A fresh wave of glee burned through her. He wouldn’t make it out of this alive.